


Is It Love You Regret?

by xevinx



Series: Never Held You Close Enough [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Bitterness, Drunken Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, ex awkwardness, yeah it’s... Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 09:56:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15555201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xevinx/pseuds/xevinx
Summary: "With all due respect, Will, that is probably the worst thing you could have said to me right now.""It's the God honest truth. I —""Don't — fuck,don't."





	Is It Love You Regret?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eby/gifts).



> Happy belated belated birthday! Love you smelly
> 
> This fic is set around a week after ["Can I Get Lost in You?,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13982856) so it would make sense to read that first.
> 
> Again, the fic title comes from a song by Keaton Henson: _Milk Teeth_
> 
> I know I tagged for it, but WARNING: Angst ahead. Some of this fic physically hurt to write...

"I didn't expect you to be here."

As he stepped up to the bar Frederick regarded his ex closely, searching for a giveaway in his features under the dim fluorescent light.

The two were attending the drinks reception following Jack and Bella Crawford's vow renewal ceremony, a celebration of their twenty-year anniversary as well as the second and hopefully permanent remission of Bella's cancer. Jack had surprised his wife by renting out the small bar that they used to frequent when they had first been dating, and there was a wonderful, warm nostalgia associated with the place for the two of them. Their twenty-odd guests were dotted around the place in small groups, engaged in light conversation.

This conversation, however, wouldn't be so light.

"You didn't expect me to be here?" replied Will, brows shooting up as he regarded his former lover closely. "Do you really think that little of me? That I wouldn't have been here for Jack?"

"No, I..." Frederick hated how quickly he grew defensive but he was helpless before Graham. "I thought that you really wouldn't want to see me. You, uh... the other night... you left without even saying goodbye.”

A creeping fear had washed over Chilton of late, a nagging worry that Will resented him for every time he received that same old phone call that inevitably led to another one of their awkward hookups.

"Goodbye has lost all meaning by this point, don't you think?" Will was clearly referring to those encounters.

"You almost sound as though you want to  _talk,_  god forbid."

"God forbid," echoed Will.

That had always been one of Frederick's biggest grouses with Graham, the way that he could skirt around a serious conversation that demanded to be had like no one else. Although, this time, he himself was happy to avoid  _that conversation_.

Stood there face to face, they were right back to being exes who had barely spoken after a tumultuous,  _messy_  break up. They might have  _seen_  each other numerous times since but they had never  _talked_.

Luckily, they were rescued for the time being by their hosts joining them.

"Thank you for coming, Will, Frederick," beamed Bella.

"Of course." Will's lips stretched into a smile that for once, he didn't have to force.

"It's my pleasure," said Frederick after coming shockingly close to saying ‘ _our_  pleasure’ as if the two of them were still a joint unit. "You look radiant, Bella."

"Thank you."

"A toast is in order, I think. To resilience," proposed Jack, the first to raise his glass of wine. After all, they were all a part of the  _'Hannibal Lecter Survivors Club',_  something to be proud of for all the victims that Lecter had claimed. "To friends."

"Old and new," added Bella with a wide smile in Chilton's direction.

In the past months, Bella had come to confide in Frederick about her experiences with Lecter, and vice versa. Rather unexpectedly, they had become close friends. While Bella hadn't been attacked directly by Lecter like some of his other victims, what he had done to her was intensely scarring psychologically. Hannibal had talked her into trying to kill herself and treated her life like a plaything to be controlled by his curious whims.

The four of them chatted for a little while, during which Frederick and Will expertly avoided speaking directly to each other. If they kept sneaking sideways glances and their hearts raced in their chests, there wasn't much they could do to stop that. After a while Jack took Will with him to speak to Agents Price and Zeller across the room, leaving Bella and Frederick at the bar.

She didn't hesitate in broaching up the subject that he would much rather have avoided.

"Seeing the way that you and Will act around each other... there is clearly still an attachment there. Strong feelings that are  _mutual_."

Bella had built up quite the reputation for being extremely insightful and in this case Frederick couldn't dodge her observation. His stomach turned at the mere thought of those feelings really being mutual.

"I don't doubt that we both... care about each other deeply," he confessed in a timid whisper. "Still."

Saying it aloud made it more real, more concrete, but to a certain extent he had always known that to be true.

"Then you should tell him."

"We ended our relationship for a reason.  _Many_ reasons, which have not simply disappeared into thin air."

"You can make excuses but it feels to me as though you are both choosing to stand in the path of your own happiness.  _Shared_  happiness."

"It is... so much more complicated than that."

"That doesn't mean that you cannot navigate the situation at all," Bella stressed, placing a hand over Frederick's where it held his glass, squeezing his fingers a little. "Trust me, because... you never know how much time you have left."

He turned to look her in the eye with a soft, sad and knowing expression on his face. Something  _did_  have to be done, but hell if he knew what.

* * * * *

An hour passed by at far from a flying pace but nonetheless filled with mild distraction: small talk and enough drinks for Frederick to lose count. As the party died down, he caught sight of Will making his way towards the front door, most likely to leave. He was beside him in a flash, before he could think twice about it.

"Will... one more?" he asked, head tilted to one side as he shook the currently empty glass in his hand from side to side. "My round."

"It's an open bar."

"I would appreciate if you saved me from drinking alone."

Already a good few drinks down himself, Will fell foul to lowered inhibitions and an intoxicated gaze too hungry for his former lover to allow him to refuse. Chilton also had his classically conspicuous _‘we need to talk’_ face on, so his heartbeat spiked.

"Uh... okay."

They strolled over to the bar where Frederick ordered for them both, remembering of course that Graham's choice of drink was the same as his own. Will downed his own measure of whiskey in one gulp, while Frederick stood astounded.

"Liquid courage," was the only explanation offered.

Frederick sighed knowingly and followed Will's example. They ordered two more drinks — doubles this time — before finding a free booth near the back of the room where they sat down across from each other, unsurprisingly putting as much space between themselves as they could.

"So, how have you been?" asked Frederick in his polite and formal voice, punctuating his words with a swig of his drink.

"I should be asking you, after —"

"After last week? I am fine. It was... a blip."

Will traced a finger around the rim of his glass, eyes unfocused as they regarded the amber liquid inside.

"Is this going to be a conversation consisting solely of lies?"

"You tell me. How are you?"

"I suspect you already know."

"Despite everything, we never could hide our true moods or emotions from each other," Frederick noted with a sigh.

They were tiptoeing around confronting their issues outright but that statement was utterly true. There was no need for Frederick to verbalise the specifics of the troubles he was wrangling with. Will just... knew. He understood what plagued him, just as he knew Will's demons inside out. The deep connection they'd shared had in part been forged because of their common struggles. Because of the nightmares and the tears and the panic attacks — and the supremely cursed days on which they all rolled into one.

"We couldn't hide the good or bad," agreed Will.

"It wasn't  _all_  bad, was it?"

"No —"

Unaware of it himself, Frederick's eyes lit up with a faint hint of hope until Will elaborated.

"— it just became so goddamn difficult to  _see_  the good."

"Right."

"D'you remember Berlin?"

Frederick nodded, feeling a little blindsided. "Of course I do."

They had spent a week in the city on their first and only anniversary, and it had been nothing short of a dream. Days spent walking aimlessly around the city hand in hand, nights spent tangled in the sheets of their hotel room.

All the hurt, all the shouting and screaming and low blows, it seemed to exist in another dimension. When they were sat together like this, nearly reminiscing, it all fell away. Nostalgia equipped them with rose-tinted glasses and the good memories stood out, memories that had temporarily lost their lustre in the heated immediacy of arguments.

"However small, it is a comfort to know that I don't only consist of bad memories for you," said Frederick with a expression less affected than his voice but with his eyes stinging as they remained downcast.

"Do I? For you?" There was an abject fear in Graham's voice as if he were almost certain that the answer to his question would singlehandedly shatter his heart from a thousand pieces into millions.

"No."

As his chest heaved with a sigh of relief, a tentative fondness appeared in Will's eyes. "We really tried, didn't we?"

"We did. Until we didn't."

"Do you regret it?" he wondered, once again afraid of the answer he might receive — but alcohol had loosened Graham's tongue even more than raw emotion.

"Giving up or ever trying in the first place?"

"Trying." He wouldn't dare ask about the former.

"We can't regret either." Frederick sat up straight in his seat to feign conviction, trying to persuade himself as much as the man sat before him. " _Not now._ In some way and for some time, it was what exactly we needed in order to reclaim our lives."

 _It was more than that,_  thought Will. For as much as he screamed the words in his head and he couldn't quite draw them to his lips.

"And yet," Frederick countered, "I cannot help but believe that if we had not cut our losses and run when we did, we would have destroyed each other even more."

They had done what they had to. They had given their relationship ample opportunity to work, and it hadn't. It had imploded spectacularly.  _What if_ s and  _could have_ s would always be difficult, but it sure seemed to Frederick as though in their case they probably weren't realistic.

Will tried to focus on the positive, fought to grasp whatever shreds of good he could find. "If nothing else, I'm glad we didn't despise each other by the end."

"Hmm." There was a confusing faraway look in Chilton's eyes, notable because it was rare for him to be quite so unreadable.

"Or do you? Despise me."

"What — no! Will... I don't think I could ever  _despise_  you." 

Graham let out an awkward chuckle. "That shouldn't be so comforting, but it is."

Love and hate were two edges of the same sword, that was what Will had been demonstrated by the worst influences in his life.

Frederick was different.

There would forever be that twinkle in his eyes whenever his gaze was directed at the other man, that look of quiet devotion that made Graham's heart sing and now  _break_  at the same time. They had known — and  _still knew —_  each other deeper than anyone else ever had and with that came a golden sense of belonging that no other person or place had ever given him.

"You know, I think about it all so much more than I should," he confessed out of nowhere.

That, and the exposed fondness written across Will's features broke through the poorly reinforced floodgates that had been holding back the most intense of Frederick's emotions thus far.

"Will, I miss you... every single day. Is that not _pathetic?_ After two whole years."

Graham was half aware that he had already been slurring his words from the whiskey, and that should have been a sign to keep his goddamn mouth shut, but he didn't. Of course he didn't, because he himself missed Frederick with every last bone of his body and now came under the timely influence of a whim to divulge those own innermost emotions.

"No, listen. I know how you feel. Listen." Will reached to place a hand over Frederick's where it lay on the table, and he kept his gaze lowered. "The other day, my new therapist, she — she asked me if I'd ever been... in love, and in that moment I swear fifty memories of your smile flashed behind my eyes. That answered that."

Frederick pulled abruptly away from Will's touch and wrung his hands together. He couldn't have been further from smiling now. It had been a long time since anyone's words had crushed his heart quite like those did then. Two years, to be more precise.

"With all due respect, Will, that is probably the worst thing you could have said to me right now." 

"It's the God honest truth. I —"

"Don't — fuck,  _don't."_

"As if you didn't already know?"

"As if I... I — you never told me!"

"I showed you."

"When?" The liquor licked from his lips, bitter, matched the vein of acridity in Frederick's tone. " _When?_  During the arguments when we nearly bit each other's heads off? Or when you cut me out completely for days at a time?"

It all came flooding back, striking them both with the force of some cruel typhoon. There were things that had been said in anger and utter frustration that couldn't be unsaid, truly hurtful things that were unerasable from their minds. Whether they liked it or not they would each carry the echoes of those venomous words until their last breaths. Yet meanwhile, they were similarly haunted by the ghosts of the sincere admissions of love that had never quite graced the air between them.

It finally dawned on Will, cutting through the haze of his tipsy mind, that their drinking together like this was a terrible idea. No good could come of discussing their past, much less their feelings.

"One thing that's certain is that we hurt each other a lot," he admitted diplomatically. "Let's not relive it; I should leave."

Making a move to stand up and step out of the booth, Will noticed that the rest of the bar was almost empty now, save for a small group including Bella and Jack near the front door. But before he could step away he was met with a more fervent reaction than he could have predicted.

"Of course!" snarled Frederick, throwing his arms up in exasperation. "Absolutely typical, there he goes, running away from any form of confrontation as though that magically solves every problem!"

"Christ, don't raise your voice. You really want to do this now?"

"Yes! All I ever needed was for you to tell me that you actually really  _wanted_  me. There were so many instances when you acted as though you damn well didn't, s-so I thought you didn't and we... we  _fucked_  everything up and now it's too late."

Frederick had always perceived an imbalance in their feelings towards each other, as though he felt much more strongly for Will than he did for him. On the worst days it had felt as though halfway having Will was worse than not having him at all. It had stirred up feelings of inadequacy that were all too familiar to Frederick and he couldn't be sure how much of that sprung directly from a cruel manifestation of his insecurities and how much was based in truth.

None of that mattered now though;  _it was far too late for them._

Frederick tried to wish away the tears with every ounce of his self-control but his eyes welled, vision blurring from more than just the alcohol.

"You know what, just go. Just — just fu–fucking leave so that I can finally _forget_  you."

"Forget?" Will breathed out, brows raised quizzically. "Tell me, how are either of us ever supposed to  _forget_  when we keep on —"

Ever since their breakup they had been existing in a bizarre purgatory of not quite being cut off from each other. The comfort of each other’s beds and arms was always a safety net, always a lifeline when the weight of the world threatened to overwhelm them.

...Not anymore, it seemed.

"Fine. You will  _never_  hear from me again, alright?" Frederick shook his head emphatically as he spoke, hands like vices around the edge of the table. "This is it. So go."

A single tear broke loose and trailed down his cheek, and he cursed under his breath as he wiped it away, struggling to keep his features arranged in the stoic expression he desired. Crying when he was angry was a unfortunate tendency of Chilton's, one that Will was sadly already au fait with.

Acting against most of his impulses in that moment Will slid back into the booth and captured Frederick's attention with beseeching eyes. He couldn't quite believe they were having this conversation out of the blue in public but the ball was rolling now — snowballing.

"Fred, whether you believe it or not, I want you to be happy. Probably more than anything else in the world, I want you to be happy."

_Even if I can’t bring that happiness to you myself._

"I want the same for you. But I am  _miserable_. I am miserable through and through, everything hurts and I struggle to see how my situation could possibly continue to worsen from here."

"You took the words from my mouth."

Chilton heaved in a lungful of air and breathed out a loud sigh. He polished off what little remained of his drink before getting to the point.

"We truly cannot... go on as we have been for all this time. Sleeping together again and again was a foolish, _foolish_ mistake." Frederick captured Will's gaze pointedly as he continued, "Every morning I wake up to find that you have left, it transports me back to that dreadful first night after we... ended."

"I don't — I can't stay the night because it hurts too much to be there. It physically hurts to play at this... vacuous, fleeting imitation of what we shared before we broke it with our own bare hands."

The ultimate predicament stood before them: they suffered when they were together, and they suffered when they were apart. The path ahead was obscured at best.

Will came out and asked the vital question, the one he was already aware that neither of them had any viable answer for: "What in God's name are we supposed to do?" 

After a long few moments, Frederick articulated his search for said answer.

"Perhaps we desecrated whatever good it was that we had, and have been meeting regardless as we do, because — because of what it always comes down to. The past. The indomitable past and far-reaching ripples that we are each still grappling with."

Will blinked slowly, his mind buzzing and thoughts sparse. "But as messed up as it all was, _with you_ was the only time that the load seemed to feel lighter _,_  when —"

"That didn't prevent it from crushing what we had." Frederick couldn't contend with the thought of hearing about how their being together had made the ongoing burden of being alive bearable again — he knew that well enough for himself. "What if all of this comes down to the simple fact that our misery may have loved company but it bred... contempt?"

If he were to be honest, Will believed that their relationship couldn't be reduced to such a simple statement, but he implicitly understood that framing it in that way would make it feel easier to let it go.

"Frankly," Frederick went on, mouth running faster than his mind and approaching utter defeatism, "I am beginning to subscribe to the belief that after everything that has happened in our lives, it may not be possible for  _either_  of us to ever forge a healthy relationship."

But  _God_ , had he absolutely adored the unhealthy one that they'd had. To him Will Graham was synonymous with love. Frederick didn't know what the word even meant without him, just four letters strung together, and sincerely doubted he would ever know it again.

Now, Will was utterly honest in his concurrence, murmured as it was — "I think you may be right."

"We are simply... doomed. Doomed to be caged by our own trauma."

The metaphor may have sounded poetic but their day-to-day reality was anything but. It was fighting a battle for each to drag his ramshackle self out of bed and the relentless obstacles the world decided to place before him, with no respite. No safe place. What made it worse was that they had both taken all the right steps to purge themselves of their past experiences but the burden refused to budge, steadfast and unwavering. Managing expectations seemed to be the only way forward now.

That, and there was one aspect of their baggage that  _could_  yet be treated differently, that was practically begging to be jettisoned: the tattered remains of their failed relationship. All that was left to be done was to sever their ties completely and irrevocably.

"Why cage ourselves further? Perhaps we... owe it to ourselves to let this failed venture go," suggested Frederick, slouching under the weight of his words. They were relatively easy for him to say but their meaning would be much more difficult to impart.

"A failed venture, is that what we're calling...  _us?"_  Will drew out the word as if he were seeking some kind of overarching truth between its letters. A truth he didn't find. "Is that really all it counts for? Defined only by the way that it ended?"

While his words themselves may have appeared to carry some kind of protest, the unmistakably weary resignation of his tone spoke volumes more.

"That's all it can be to us now."

 _Over_.

Frederick silenced the voice in his head that knew it could never _truly_ be over, that knew he couldn't even begin to fight the affection he felt towards the incontestable love of his life.

Meanwhile, Will only nodded in response. But inwardly he tussled with the knowledge that loving Frederick Chilton was a fundamental part of who he was, that it was seared into his skin alongside his wounds, written into the very fabric of his identity.

And yet how they felt for each other, as strong as they had thought that to be, had already once proven not to be enough.

So, by all rights, the pain shouldn't have been as raw this time around — after all, the wounds weren't fresh and had already had years to heal. But logic held no place in the heart and raking over those old wounds was all the more agonising, poorly healed scar tissue being ripped open.

In some ways this ending felt reminiscent of their break up and yet also entirely opposite. It had an unfamiliar and deafening ring of irrevocability about it that made Frederick shiver right to his bones. He stood up abruptly and trembling hands straightened his tie as he gradually built up the courage to walk away.

For Will, the prospect of never seeing Frederick again, of never being able to hold him in his arms — it gave him the strongest urge to beg him to stay and pledge to find everything that had evaded them the first time around.

Yet all the while a profound knowledge resonated in the depths of his chest, an awareness that if —  _when_  their relationship broke down again he wouldn't be strong enough to survive his whole world being pulled out from under his feet once more.

Chilton shuffled out of the booth and took a small step away, then another. Will could only watch at first, paralysed by his despair, and it felt like as though a lifetime had passed before he spoke.

"Frederick, wait. Don't just —"

He froze immediately, turned on his heels and Will leapt up to face him, seizing his lips in a kiss. As Frederick felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder his own slid around Will's neck, fingers carding through his curls, dormant instincts waking for what every atom in his body knew would be the last time.

It wasn't one of those messy, spontaneous kisses like practically all of those they had shared in recent times. Quite the opposite; it was slow and intentioned and that made it all the more terrifying in its meaning. If ever there were a kiss that carried both deep and everlasting love, this was it.

Frederick's flushed lips quivered, overwhelmed as one last confession sprung forth from them.

"I know what I said earlier, but..." He sniffed ungraciously, far beyond caring about putting up a front. "I will  _never_  forget you, Will Graham. And whatever may have happened, I don't intend to."

Will nodded almost imperceptibly, wordlessly returning the sentiment. As his eyes lidded over all that remained for him to say was a softly whispered plea.

"Forgive me, then."  _For so ignorantly destroying the best thing to ever happen to either of us._  "Forgive us both?"

That would be the last thing he would ask of him.

Frederick couldn't bring himself to comply, he choked back the strangled sob that had been perched at the bottom of his throat all this time and gasped, "One day, I hope."

As their foreheads rested against each other and their chests heaved, Will took a good moment to breath Frederick in. All of him — the sight, the smell and every last, turbulent emotion that he incited within him... and then he breathed him out.

This time, there was no question about the finality of their goodbye.

**Author's Note:**

> I hate me too, but.... I’m back...?  
> Hopefully other updates will be coming soon?
> 
> Thanks for reading <3 Comments and kudos are always greatly appreciated!


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